


Something Else

by damnslippyplanet



Series: Something Else [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Copious Booze, Copious Sass, Except I Think Maybe It Kind Of Works?, F/F, Season/Series 01, These Two Are Not Making A Good Life Choice Here, so much sass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 01:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7147142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Beverly adds, “I told them to keep sending them over.  Try to keep up.  While we’re waiting for the next round, tell me.  What makes you think I’m going to tell you <span class="u">anything at all</span> that you want to know?”   She leans her elbows on the table and cocks her head at Freddie, whose mouth still tastes like sugar and fire. Later on, Freddie will suspect that of being the moment the entire evening slipped sideways and out of her hands.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or: In which Freddie thinks Beverly might be able to tell her something interesting about Will Graham or Abigail Hobbs.  Things don't go quite according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Else

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a contribution for the [JustFuckMeUp Fest](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/post/144915637924/join-us-in-the-justfuckmeup-fest-what-is-it), but it turned out that while these two definitely wanted to screw like Bad Idea Bunnies, they did not want to do so in any particularly kinky fashion that would qualify them for the fest. Nonetheless, this bit of rarepair fun is dedicated with love to the fine Fannibals of the Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive for the inspiration to explore a pairing I hadn't before, for a fandom that could use more femslash.
> 
> Now with [a sequel!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8068846)

Beverly Katz flings herself into the opposite side of the booth with such cheerful violence that it’s a miracle she doesn’t spill the two drinks she’s holding.  The drinks survive and Katz slides one of them across the table.

Freddie picks it up and raises it to eye level to study it. For such a small shot glass, there seems to be a lot going on.  There are layers, and violently clashing colors, and for some reason a cherry perched on top.  Something around the rim, colored salt or sugar. “Do I even want to know what this is?”

Katz shrugs and grins.  “Hell, I don’t even know.  I told them to make me something vile and expensive, the redhead’s buying.  Bottoms up.”

Freddie eyes the shot one more time, decides it’s got a pretty good chance of being vegetarian, feels the weight of Katz’s eyes on her, and tosses it back.

It’s _vile,_ for sure.  Sweet to the exclusion of any other flavor except an underlying bite and burn that she can feel all the way down her throat. At least she can call the bar tab a business expense, if she can get some information out of Katz about Will Graham or Abigail Hobbs.  

Freddie represses the urge to shudder and just says, “Ugh.”

Katz watches her reaction curiously and then slams her own shot back, the empty glass down on the scarred table with a clink.   _"Jesus fuck._ Yeah, that’s… well, I guess I got what I asked for.”  She eats the cherry and then adds, “I told them to keep sending them over.  Try to keep up.   While we’re waiting for the next round, tell me.  What makes you think I’m going to tell you anything at _all_ that you want to know?”

She leans her elbows on the table and cocks her head at Freddie, whose mouth still tastes like sugar and fire.  Later on, Freddie will suspect that of being the moment the entire evening slipped sideways and out of her hands.

* * *

Beverly (she’d insisted on being called “Beverly” after the third round of shots, insisting “only my friends call me Katz, it’s Beverly to members of the press”, with a laugh that had run up and down most of an octave) is really good at darts.  She claims not to know whether it’s the gun range practice, natural ability, or a lot of time spent in bars in college.  

Whatever the reason, she’s kicking Freddie’s ass, and hasn’t offered up anything more useful about Will Graham than “You’ve got him all wrong.  That man wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Maybe a really mean fly.  A big, mean fly with a gun.”

The laugh following that had been more like an undignified snort than an octave of bells.  Beverly, apparently, contains multitudes.

“You know, what you did to Zee really sucked.”

It’s said at just the perfect moment to throw off Freddie’s aim.  That dart probably wasn’t going to hit the center anyway, given that Freddie’s feeling a little wobbly and this isn’t her game to start with. But it ends up barely clinging to the edge of the board.  Beverly Katz _cheats._

Freddie’s only half-faking the tone of embarrassment in her voice when she says, “I’m surprised he told you.”

Beverly shrugs and tosses three darts in a row, practically dead center, thwack-thwack-thwack.  The line of her, suddenly in motion, is arresting.  She barely looks first. It’s uncanny.  “It’s amazing what you’ll get to talking about in a morgue.  Gotta distract yourself somehow.  And you hurt his feelings.  You could at least have called to say sorry, you know?”

Freddie had forgotten about the whole thing the moment it was over, really.  It had been pleasant enough, Zeller a fun lay and prone to talking afterwards, but she’d been on to other leads.  Calling him afterwards had never crossed her mind; she’d thought they both knew their evening for what it was.

“Journalists don’t apologize.”

“Do journalists get hangovers?”

There’s another round of shots coming toward them.  These appear to be pink - violently, vibrantly pink, radioactive.  Freddie raises hers toward Beverly with a little shrug that’s as close to apologizing for hurting Zeller as she’s going to get and says, “Let’s find out.”

They clink the shot glasses and down the pink horrors.   This one doesn’t burn as much, or maybe her throat’s just entirely numb by now.  It’s even sweeter.  It’s not at all what Freddie would have imagined Beverly would drink, and she means to ask whether maybe it’s what Beverly thinks _Freddie_ would drink, but that’s not at all what comes out of her mouth.

Instead she says, “What, exactly, did he tell you about me?”

Beverly sticks a dart in Freddie’s hand, shoves her toward the board, and says only, “Wouldn’t you like to know?  And how’s that going to help you with your story?  Ask me something you really want to know.  I’ll tell you something, any one thing.”  Her eyes are a little bright, a little reckless - she’s losing her grip a bit, too, which is oddly reassuring.  At least it’s not just Freddie who’s had too much.

Any one question.  She could ask about Graham’s disqualification from full agent status.  She could ask whether the Bureau knows about Abigail’s disappearances from her hospital.  She might get a whole story out of one question, if it’s a good one.

“Well?”  

Beverly licks her lips and Freddie wonders if they’re as sugar-sweet from the drinks as Freddie’s own.

“What would you drink if you weren’t ordering specifically to torture me and bleed my bank account?”

Beverly smiles slow and wide and only hesitates for a moment before answering, “Good question.  Go close out our tab and I’ll show you.”

* * *

Tequila, it turns out, is Beverly’s drink.

Rosie, it turns out, is Beverly’s cat.  

(“Rosalind,” Beverly calls out over her shoulder as she rummages through her liquor cabinet. “After Rosalind Franklin. Don’t ask, unless you want my rant about Crick and Watson right now.”)

Freddie’s not _entirely_ sure how an attempt to get some inside information about Will Graham from Beverly Katz ended up in Beverly’s comfortably messy living room, but she’s fairly sure that whatever she’s here for, it’s not a rant about sexism in the hard sciences.  She attempts to make friends with Rosie instead.

Rosie is not particularly interested; she flees to the top of a bookcase and glares down at Freddie.

Beverly puts Freddie to work slicing limes, while she feeds Rosie.  Her kitchen is bright and quiet after the noise and dark of the bar, and it occurs to Freddie that if she’s going to sober up and leave, this is the time to do it.  Getting information from Beverly has clearly turned out to be a bust; she either doesn’t know anything useful or isn’t going to tell what she knows.  

She rarely does anything without a plan, and going home with Beverly Katz was not in the plan.

Freddie considers this while she carefully slices up a lime.  Behind her, Beverly is saying something low and quiet to the cat, in a tone of voice Freddie hasn’t heard from her before - something sweet and fond and silly.

Freddie reaches for another lime.

* * *

Beverly’s lips are warm and a little chapped, and her hands smell like limes, and she is not shy.

The only thing that seems to give her pause is the instant when they hesitate, balanced on the knife’s-edge of the moment when a heated but playful makeout session could become something more.  She’s got one warm hand under Freddie’s shirt, splayed against her side, and another cupping Freddie’s jaw, and it’s clearly the moment that they either take this to the bedroom, or don’t.

Her forehead’s wrinkled with apparent concern, but she’s breathing hard, and her lower lip’s a bit puffy where Freddie bit it, and altogether she’s something to behold.

“You started this,” Freddie says in response to the sudden tentativeness she can feel in Beverly’s entire body.  “You shouldn’t invite a journalist to your house if you don’t want her rummaging through your drawers.”

And Beverly just...breaks, a giant whoop of laughter and her head tilted back to show Freddie a lovely expanse of throat and collarbone waiting to be tasted.  She lets Freddie go and collapses back onto the sofa cushion with a howl of laughter, managing to gasp out between giggles, “Oh, god, that’s...fuck, Lounds, that’s _terrible ._  How do you _ever_ get laid with lines like that?”

Freddie’s a little dizzy, on tequila and Beverly and the wild improbability of the entire situation.  She just smiles back, shoves an errant tangle of curls out of her eyes where Beverly’s hands had mussed them up, and says, “It’s been mostly men, lately. I don’t think they care _what_ I say, as long as I show them my tits.”

Beverly’s eyes flick immediately to her cleavage (fairly modestly covered, at the moment - Freddie hadn’t been anticipating this when she’d chosen her outfit for the evening), but she doesn’t move or reach for Freddie, just says, “Yeah?  I’m not Brian Zeller, you’re going to have to try a little harder with me.”

It sounds like a challenge, and probably a really smooth pick-up line would be a good idea here.  But midnight’s long since ticked by, and Freddie really wants to feel those hands on her again, and in the end she just whips her shirt off and chucks it at Beverly. At least she’s wearing a good bra, even if she hadn’t been expecting to show it to anyone.  

Beverly stares for a minute, and then sits back up and reaches for Freddie, hauling her halfway across the sofa to kiss her again as she runs her hands up the newly-exposed plane of Freddie’s back.  It’s a long minute before they break the kiss and Beverly groans, “Fine. Damn it.  I guess you don’t have to try that hard.  Look, though--”  and there’s that hesitation again.  “Really.  I’m not Zee.  You’re not going to get me to tell you anything about my work this way.  If that’s what this is about…”

“I have absolutely no idea what this is about.”  Freddie’s voice sounds high and breathy to her own ears.  It’s unvarnished truth, for once, and it must actually sound like it, because Beverly nods as if she believes it.

“Okay.” Beverly sounds like she’s talking to herself, then says louder, “Okay.  Bedroom, then.  C’mon.  And, Lounds?”

“Hm?”  Freddie can’t actually say much more than that, at the moment, she’s busy kissing all along Beverly’s collarbone.

“I think you’d better call me Bev now.”

* * *

There’s a small mountain of laundry on the bed, which Freddie notes only vaguely - clearly no one else has gotten invited back to this bed anytime recently, clearly Bev’s either too busy or too indifferent to care about putting her laundry away, clearly she needs to upgrade her bed, this one squeaks horribly as they tumble onto it.

None of these things are a primary concern, at the moment.

There are clothes to contend with, both the ones they’re wearing and the ones on the bed that Beverly dumps unceremoniously to the floor.  There is Rosie to be shut out of the room, after she jumps to the top of a dresser and starts meowing piteously for attention. There’s more kissing to do, mouths still flavored sharp with tequila and salt, and then lower, to soft skin and softer curses and the occasional startled half-laugh as one or the other of them wonders _what the hell are we doing?_

And yet, there is no stopping.

It’s been quite a while, at least for Freddie, since she had this with another woman.  Beverly -- _Bev_ , and Freddie finds herself saying that quite a bit, pressing the new name with her lips into Beverly’s shoulder and ribcage and thighs -- she is both softer and harder than anything Freddie remembers.  She is warm brown skin, silky and smooth, over firm muscles that pin Freddie where Bev wants her.  She is an unsurprisingly filthy mouth - _fuck, Lounds, harder, there, no you don’t, shit, fuck_ \- counterpointed by sweet, surprised little sounds when Freddie finds just how Bev likes to be touched and licked and held.  Bev’s supernatural ability to hit targets  on the first try apparently holds in this arena too, when she dives face-first between Freddie’s legs and brings her to a shivering, wailing orgasm with an accuracy and intensity that makes Freddie suddenly unable to remember what on earth she was even doing with men, when it’s not like this, it’s never like this.

Just after the second time Bev comes, shattered and beautiful on Freddie’s determined fingers, there’s a rattling thump against the wall and someone yelling, “ _IT’S TWO IN THE FUCKING MORNING._ ”

Freddie _had_ been entertaining vague, if increasingly sleepy, notions of a third attempt, but the mood dissolves abruptly into laughter.  Bev’s entirely unconvincing when she opens her eyes wide and innocent and asks, “Did I forget to tell you my neighbor’s bedroom backs up against mine?”

There’s something clever Freddie could say right now, she knows there is, but there’s barely a thought in her head.  It’s all booze and afterglow and exhaustion, and all she can manage is, “ _No_ , I’m fairly sure you left that out.”

“Sorry.”

Bev rearranges herself, all long limbs and wild bedhead, until they’re face to face.  It should be awkward, and it will be awkward if Freddie stays, but it’s not awkward yet.  

"You can stay,” she says, warm but a little tentative.  “If you want. There’s not much in the way of breakfast but I make a good cup of coffee.”

Freddie’s fairly sure she’s going to have the mother of all hangovers, and breakfast is going to be far from her mind anyway.  She should go.  But the terrible squeaky bed is warm, and Beverly smells like tequila and sweat and sex, and her pants feel very far away.  Maybe she’ll sleep for a few hours and then slip out early in the morning, before Bev can wake up.  

“Yeah, okay. Thanks. Sorry about your neighbor.”

Bev groans and bites at Freddie’s shoulder lightly.  “He’s an asshole.  Don’t worry about it.  Play your cards right and maybe we can make him mad again in the morning.”

There’s no earthly reason that should make Freddie feel warm and tingly down to her toes.  Probably something chemical, afterglow and oxytocin.  It’ll be gone in the morning.  She’ll get back on track in the morning with the plan, which is Will Graham and Abigail Hobbs, not...this, whatever this is.

Freddie yawns and pulls up the blanket that got kicked down to the foot of the bed at some point. There’s a little more maneuvering, to make comfortable room for two, and really no way to do it without a certain amount of touch, even though Freddie doesn’t think of herself as a post-coital cuddler and wouldn’t have thought of Bev as one either.  

She’s on the verge of drifting off when Bev mumbles warm in her ear, “A couple of things you should know, if you’re going to stay.”

“Mm?”

“Don’t try this with Price, if you were thinking of working your way through the rest of the team. Pretty sure he’s a Kinsey seven, he might not even realize you were making a pass.”

"Wouldn’t dream of it.”  Not entirely true - Freddie considers all the angles - but she’s reached the conclusion herself already that sex is not the card to play with Jimmy Price. Then again, she hadn’t meant for it to be the card she played with Beverly Katz.

“If you get up before I do, feel free to raid the fridge, but don’t feed Rosie.  She’s on a diet.”

That’s so weirdly out of place and domestic that Freddie nearly laughs, but instead she nods solemnly.  “No feeding Rosie.  Check. Anything else.”

“You can look around if you want, but you’re not going to find anything for your story.  I don’t bring my work home with me.”

“Current evidence suggests that’s not entirely true.”

Bev snickers a little, pulls at one of Freddie’s curls and lets it bounce back, then wriggles into a position that might be more comfortable for her or might be an actual attempt at spooning.  “This isn’t work.”

“Yeah?”  Freddie tries to challenge that, but a yawn catches her instead and all she ends up with is, “What is it, then?”

“No idea.”  A last warm kiss, to the back of Freddie’s neck.  “Something else.”

Freddie means to outlast Bev. She really does.  Stay awake until she falls asleep, look around for evidence, then decide whether to catch a few hours of rest or just be on her way now.  There’s got to be _some_ scrap of casework in the house that would tell her something useful.

But it’s late, and she’s comfortable and well-fucked and still half-drunk, and in the end that all outweighs the rest. She’s asleep before she can even figure out what _something else_ might mean.


End file.
